When the late Pope Francis announced that the ninth Bishop of Hong Kong, Stephen Chow Sau-yan, was to become a cardinal, he recognized Chow’s role as a bridge builder.
Like Pope Francis, Chow saw himself as a conciliator, committed to healing divisions and fostering connections with the rest of China. He said his appointment would “strengthen the role of the Catholic Church in Hong Kong as a bridging church, to promote exchanges and interactions” between Chinese mainland and the universal church.
Having become the bishop of Hong Kong in 2021, Chow made a groundbreaking five-day visit to Beijing in April 2023 (the first such visit in over 30 years). He met local religious leaders, including Bishop Joseph Li Shan, head of the Beijing diocese and president of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. His trip would have been cleared with the Vatican, and, like Pope Francis, his fellow Jesuit, he sought common ground rather than confrontation.
He was, moreover, open about his love of country, saying, “Everyone would like to see their own country do well, no one wants it to do badly.”
And then, in words that must have incensed his predecessor, Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, who openly aligned himself with China-hostile elements in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region during the public disturbances, he added, “I think it’s everyone’s duty to be patriotic if you’re a citizen” in Hong Kong or on the Chinese mainland.
If this upset Zen, it incensed the co-founder of the United Kingdom-based Hong Kong Watch, Benedict Rogers, a serial fantasist who specializes in China-hostile propaganda. After Chow’s appointment was announced by Pope Francis, Rogers, writing in the Catholic Herald, chided Chow for pursuing the Vatican’s policy of dialogue with Beijing (Oct 1). He claimed Chow was “compromised”, accusing him of being “too eager to give too much to Beijing too quickly, instead of defending what is left of Hong Kong’s autonomy for the Church”. Although a Catholic convert, Rogers was apparently unfamiliar with one of the church’s most basic tenets (or else chose to ignore it). It requires the church and state to respect one another and try to amicably coexist. As Chow explained in 2023, “Love for our country is part of the Catholic Church’s teachings. Starting with the famous saying of Jesus, ‘Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God’.”
Although this home truth is fundamental to Catholic doctrine, it was too much for Rogers, who cannot stomach anything positive about China and regards improved Sino-Vatican ties as anathema. Indeed, he often targeted Pope Francis over his outreach to China, and has urged his successor, Pope Leo XIV, to change course. On Nov 21, 2023, he even turned up in the Canadian Parliament, peddling a report alleging that churches on the Chinese mainland and in Hong Kong were under “threat”. As evidence, he mischievously cited “the arrest last year of then 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen, and also the imprisonment of Pastor Garry Pang and the arrest of Pastor Alan Keung”.
What, however, Rogers did not explain to the assembled parliamentarians was that a judge had imprisoned Garry Pang Moon-yuen for a year because, in a series of seditious YouTube videos, he had “seriously undermined the rule of law, having damaged judicial officers’ credibility and trampled on the courts’ dignity”. He also failed to disclose that Alan Keung Ka-wai was arrested for conspiring to promote, sell or display seditious publications on Facebook (to which offense he pleaded guilty).
Rogers’ attempt, moreover, to sensationalize Zen’s arrest was no less contemptible. Although Zen was fined HK$4,000 ($514) for breaching the Societies Ordinance over his involvement in an unregistered fund that supported criminal suspects arrested during the insurrection and was briefly arrested in connection with a suspected national security offense, his judgment is appalling and he is certainly no sort of martyr.
As Chow explained when he visited Parramatta, New South Wales, last month, Zen, despite impressions in the media to the contrary, was never imprisoned — “Not one day was he in prison. And they say that he was under house arrest. Not one day, he was under house arrest.”
Chow also used his Australian visit to debunk several other myths, which his audience, after incessant smears from Hong Kong Watch, its affiliates and proxies, including Hong Kong exiles and national security suspects Ted Hui Chi-fung and Kevin Yam Kin-fung, must have welcomed. He said religious persecution was “not happening in Hong Kong”, and that Hong Kong’s other religious leaders, whom he had consulted, agreed with him, which was true. In 2024, for example, Chow’s counterpart, the Anglican archbishop and primate of Hong Kong, Andrew Chan Au-ming, told the talk show Friday Beyond Spotlights that “In Hong Kong we enjoy religious freedom for a long time”, adding there were “a lot of different faiths in the city”.
Chow believed Beijing wanted “to keep the religious freedom intact in Hong Kong”, adding that “we still enjoy a lot of freedom”. This, he felt, was important, as such things as religious freedom and the common law enabled people to have faith in “one country, two systems”. He urged his host, Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen, to “come to Hong Kong and see for yourself” (that there was no persecution).
Although these truths must have been unpalatable to the likes of Zen, Rogers, Hui and Yam, they left it to America’s “religious right” to lead the attack (not for the first time), and it eagerly obliged.
First out of the traps was George Weigel, a Catholic author who told The Catholic World (Sept 24) that, unlike his predecessor, Joseph Zen, Chow had “done virtually nothing to support Catholicism’s most famous 21st century political prisoner” Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, which was bizarre. Whatever the position may be where Weigel lives, Chow would have realized that, even if he was so inclined, it was not open to him to interfere in Lai’s trial, and that to do so could amount to an attempt to pervert the course of public justice (just as it does in other common law jurisdictions).
Weigel then claimed that Lai’s “Catholic faith in human dignity and freedom has kept him in solitary confinement for over 1,600 days while being prosecuted on absurd charges of threatening ‘national security’”, which was delusional. He was clearly unfamiliar with the evidence adduced at Lai’s trial (by his former confederates and others), in which prosecutors alleged that he colluded with foreign forces to endanger China’s national security, which is as serious as it gets. Indeed, Weigel’s tirade could have been lifted straight out of the playbook of the United States Congressional-Executive Commission on China, the McCarthyite propaganda outfit, and it lacked any context.
He failed to mention, for example, that Lai is in solitary confinement at his own request, or that, as a convicted fraudster, he is currently serving a sentence of five years and nine months’ imprisonment (imposed in December 2022).
By contrast, Chow is familiar with Hong Kong’s legal system and will know that Lai is receiving a fair trial before independent judges, and will only be convicted if his guilt is proved beyond a reasonable doubt. He will also know that Lai is represented by a first-class legal team, which has taken every possible point in his favor.
Unfortunately, Weigel was not alone, and another boot boy, the neoconservative Steven Mosher, president of the US Population Research Institute, who holds himself out as a sinologist, also joined in. He described Chow’s belief in Beijing’s commitment to religious freedom in Hong Kong as “laughable”, which, if nothing else, exposed his ignorance of the situation on the ground. He also claimed “the walls are closing in on the Church in Hong Kong”, which must have been news to Chow. Although, for reasons best known to himself, Mosher made no mention of it, religious freedom and activity are specifically protected by the Hong Kong Basic Law (Art.141), by the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance (Art.15) and by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Art.18).
He also downplayed the ability of Hong Kong’s approximately 1.3 million Christians to worship freely without let or hindrance. Indeed, in 2024, according to official figures, there were an estimated 392,000 Roman Catholics in the city, faithfully served by about 269 priests, 92 brothers and 404 sisters operating in 52 parishes (comprising 39 churches, 30 chapels and 26 halls for religious services).
Moreover, of Hong Kong’s five chief executives since 1997, three have been Catholics, showing that faith is no bar to preferment (of which Mosher made no mention).
Also roped in to disparage Chow was Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute. She weighed in with a claim that Chow was not free to criticize the Communist Party of China, meaning that “everything he says about the party’s policies and actions must be taken with a grain of salt”, which may have amused him. He is known for his candor, and there is no reason to suppose he is ever reluctant to speak his mind (in private, if not in public).
When Shea called on Pope Leo to block moves by the religious authorities in the Chinese mainland to collaborate with the Hong Kong church in interpreting the Bible, she displayed her true colors. She presumably wanted the two places to go in different directions, perpetuating the divisions of the past.
However, Chow, like Pope Francis, believes in Catholics coming together, a concept sometimes known as “synodality” (journeying together), and it was this that annoyed Shea.
Indeed, in November 2023, when Bishop Joseph Li made a reciprocal visit to Hong Kong (the first such trip), Chow, having described the Hong Kong church as a “bridge church”, said that one of his dreams was “to have bishops, fathers and faithfuls (sic) from four cross-strait societies to pray together”, referring to China’s constituent parts.
Although Shea may dislike his bridge-building, Chow will not be deflected by his critics — and he does not stand alone. After he visited the Vatican early last month, Chow told the Sunday Examiner that Pope Leo recognized the importance of maintaining communication with the Chinese mainland authorities. He said the Pope would be following the course set by his predecessor, Pope Francis, regarding relations between Beijing and the Vatican. What this meant, therefore, was that Chow and Pope Leo were on the same page, and that Chow was on the right side of history. People of goodwill everywhere will wish him well.
The author is a senior counsel and law professor, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
